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RedditI recently finished a series that has been recommended a lot on BookTok and now I’m going to give you my Madison Kate series review. The Madison Kate series is written by Tate James and this is my first time reading any of her books.
As usual I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum however there may be a few small spoilers in this review.
“I did the only thing any self-respecting woman in my position could do. I slammed my knee into his nuts. Then ran like hell.”
Tate James – Hate
Due to the nature of this series I will not be doing individual reviews of each of the books. This is to avoid spoilers as the series should be read in order.
The Madison Kate series is an enemies to lovers, new adult college, why choose romance series with gang activity and violence. Please check the trigger warnings below before reading.
Trigger Warnings
Since we don’t always get trigger warnings on books I like to give trigger warnings in my reviews. This can help people avoid certain triggers that could hurt their mental well being.
Possible Triggers in this book are:
- Alcohol
- Animal Death
- Anxiety
- Assault
- Attempted Murder
- Blood
- Car Accident
- Death
- Decapitation
- Depression
- Drugs
- Fire
- Gun Violence
- Hospitalization
- Kidnapping
- Misogyny
- Murder
- Pregnancy (Not MC)
- Profanity
- Prostitution (Mention)
- PTSD
- Rape (Mention)
- Sexism
- Sexually Explicit Scenes
- Slut Shaming
- Spiders
- Violence
For a list of the triggers I look for you can check out this link here. This may or may not be a complete list of triggers for this book, I do my best to make sure I mark anything that could be a potential trigger but I may accidentally miss triggers.
Madison Kate Series Reading Order
This series is not a standalone series, the books all need to be read in order to understand what is happening in the story. Characters in this book also appear in the Hades Series and The Guild Series by Tate James. I recommend reading this series first before reading Hades and then The Guild. There are four books in this series.
The Madison Kate Series is available on Kindle Unlimited. If you like reading a lot of books like I do I highly recommend having this subscription service. For less than the cost of one book you can read thousands upon thousands of books.
Madison Kate Series Synopsis
Madison Kate was the Princess of Shadow Grove but her family held some pretty dark secrets. All she wants now is to live a normal life and enjoy it, so when she and her friend find themselves in the middle of a gang war at an illegal fight she has to try to escape one of the most dangerous men in Shadow Grove.
What she wasn’t expecting was getting framed for organizing the illegal fight that led to riots throughout the city. She couldn’t possibly have organized the fight but her father has no problem throwing her under the bus for it and then shipping her off to Cambodia.
Now she’s back in Shadow Grove and the three men she believes framed her are living in her father’s house. Stuck with them she plots her revenge for how they ruined her life. The problem is all three men are insanely hot and despite her revenge plot she’s finding out they aren’t that bad after all.
Madison Kate Series Reading Experience
Going in I knew that this was an enemies to lovers why choose but I didn’t know much about the plot. It was constantly recommended on BookTok but no one really shared much about it. After reading it I can completely understand why that is.
There are a lot of moving parts in this series with two major plots centered around Madison Kate. There are also a lot of characters and there were times where I had to pause to remember who was who in the supporting characters.
Overall though the story moves at a steady pace and I couldn’t put the books down till I finished them. The Madison Kate series is filled with action, twists, and spice so overall I enjoyed reading this series.
- Hate is 418 pages.
- Liar is 448 pages.
- Fake is 548 pages.
- Kate is 594 pages.
Each book took me about a day to read though there were times when it took a little less. Thankfully the books have a good pace and there are places where it isn’t so hard to put the book down so you can sleep or handle some of your daily tasks.
Madison Kate Series Characters
Madison Kate is a strong woman who’s been through quite a bit in her young life. She’s suffered traumas at a young age and not having a present father has forced her to grow up pretty quickly. While there are plenty of scenes where her immaturity shows there are also moments that have you cheering her on for kicking ass.
Archer D’Ath, Kodiak Jones, and Max Steele are all incredibly hot and very different in personalities. Archer is the serious one, Kody is the joker, and Steele is the loving one. Their dynamic with each other and then individually with Madison Kate is perfect.
Madison Kate’s friends, Bree and Dallas, are super cute. I love how Bree is supportive even if she’s going through her own drama. I enjoyed how Dallas is protective over Madison Kate while also not afraid to stand up to the three men living in her house.
Cass is my favorite supporting character even though he’s quiet through most of the series. I love the calming, grumpy, and protective personality traits of this character. I do have a theory about who Cass really is but I don’t want to accidentally spoil anything for anyone. I just hope I see him in a future series.
Madison Kate Series Review
I really enjoyed the character growth throughout the series without complete changes to the original personalities. While the characters matured or found a way to heal from their own problems they still remained who they were at the core while learning to move past their past trauma.
It’s not often that a story can have two major plot points that get pulled through the entire series and have it still be interesting. We got hints and clues throughout but we don’t see that final twist coming and when it hits it’s a bit shocking.
Finally, the backstory that gets explained throughout the entire series is interesting and makes a lot of things click into place. Seeing what each of our main characters goes through and the connections we make between the past and the present adds so many incredible layers to the characters.
Star Rating
Before I rate this book I want to give you a bit of background about what my rankings mean. I typically read books that I check out through the Libby app with my local library or through Kindle Unlimited.
I rarely buy ebooks unless they are cheaply priced or on sale. I also very rarely buy physical copies of books. I’m a bit of a minimalist so I have to absolutely adore a book to buy a physical copy that will be proudly displayed in my home.
So my ranking system is as follows:
- 5 Stars equals I am buying a physical copy of this book. I will read this book at least 10 more times, it is the best ever.
- 4 stars equals a great book. I might buy an ebook version when it’s on sale so that I can re-read it at least one more time.
- 3 stars equals a good book. I likely won’t read again but I appreciate the story.
- 2 stars equals “Meh.” I will not read this book again, it had a lot of problems and I did not care for it.
- 1 star equals a bad book. I barely finished this book and I will never recommend anyone waste valuable book reading time on this book.
- 0 stars is a did not finish book. I will never finish that book and it is banished.
The Madison Kate series gets 4 stars and 3 peppers. I wasn’t completely emotionally destroyed at any point during this series. There were moments of shock that had me turning the pages quickly but overall I didn’t have any moments of emotional distress. However, I really did enjoy this series.
See what other books I read in September here.
Have you read the Madison Kate Series? What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below. Follow me on TikTok and Pinterest for more like this and pin this to your favorite book boards.
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